


and farewell king

by shinobi93



Category: Henry V - Shakespeare
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Dysentery, M/M, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-08
Updated: 2014-01-08
Packaged: 2018-01-07 23:00:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1125409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinobi93/pseuds/shinobi93
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry V is dying; not a warrior's death, but a man's, sick and delirious. The past knocks one last time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and farewell king

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for character death and only-researched-on-Wikipedia depiction of the illness he may have died from, which essentially means I am following Shakespeare's attitude to history.
> 
> Basically I wanted to write shady Machiavellian warrior king dying and delirious, apparently.

_‘A man is here to see you, your majesty.’_

-

King Henry V is dying. Struck suddenly, he sweats and cries out, bodily fluids laughing in the face of the dignity of kingship. No warrior’s death for him, but he has little time to lament. On foreign land, a long way from the Monmouth castle where he came into the world, he vomits up royal blood, for this flux has no care for its significance. In less feverish moments, he wonders if this is what it was like for all those others, those he has killed in battle. No, he let them die quickly, with honour, and God will not judge him for that. Other things, God may judge him for, but not that, he is certain.

The country is safe, he thinks next in these lucid moments, his brother named regent and his infant son keeping up the lineage. The French campaign will have to be continued, for they must not lose what he has won, what many have said he won back for his great-uncle. He goes to give orders, dictate advice back to England, but the clarity always slips back in delirium. Barely a king now, but it won’t be long until he is not one at all.

‘Where-’ he whispers confusedly, but there is no one listening. Nobody wants to watch the king die so horribly.

Sometimes he forgets he is king, believes he is a boy watching his uncle be king again, gold the only colour before his eyes. Never knowing one day that would be him. The court was so thrilling to him then, a place of life, a place his father seemed to like less and less. Learning power, learning manners, learning how to trick them all. Or he is in the tavern, the tutor of his riots alive again, a ghost filling half the room. His memory, on the edge of breakdown, triples Falstaff’s bulk, expanding him to fill his personality. The man offers a hand, as if to pull Henry up, or Hal as he should be, but he does not have the strength to raise his arm in return. Cannot drink down a last cup of sack, amidst the laughter of the old jester. No, his brain remembers, he is dead. Died on a bed like the King will, dying through human weakness rather than strength.

-

_‘Who?’ Henry asks, his usual commanding voice failing and coming out like a croak. The servant looks apprehensive._

-

The visions hit again and again: his father mostly, first younger and angry at his son’s early riots, then older and greyer, close to death. So close he is almost living corpse. Each time, the figure says nothing, just stares at him. Whether in blame, indifference or pride, he couldn’t tell even if he was not hallucinating. His father’s stare was legendary. Then the images lurch away, replaced with pain. He sees battles, too fast to distinguish which ones. Dying there would have been better, would’ve looked better to the people: Henry V’s final message. He wanted to die a king, but all he can think of is his father and uncle; maybe kings do not get majestic deaths.

Stronger, less stinking of death, he would have spoken to the small band of men with him, one last urge to fight for England. To die for England. Individual lives are not worth anything, not to the whole: he has always believed that. Now he’s finding it harder to hold onto, in these final days, hours, minutes. His life is worth more, ten thousands lives perhaps, but he knows this is not about his physical body. His body is that of a man; his life of a king.

King Henry V must live on, in name, but his body is giving up.

-

_‘He said his name was Ned Poins, your majesty,’ the servant says, trying not to look at the dying King. It is not a sight to behold. ‘That you would know the name.’_

-

For a whole hour the King is convinced he is lying in wait on a road to London, attired in buckram. Away good Ned, he mutters to himself, making the servants following the doctor’s commands jump. His fever makes it all real, a second life for the princely act. A good jest, he believes, that will form a great entertainment that evening; he must congratulate Ned, in some way or another. He sees the others stumble away thwarted in their robbery, wants to laugh, but he no longer can. He does not need to. Laughter is to fill the pauses in his speeches, the ones meant to be friendly not threatening; he will not give another speech, so does not need the strength to laugh.

The delirium abates again, but he remembers the dream, the smell of the earth and the sound of Poins’ breathing beside him. Henry is surprised he can recall such thoughts, for he never expected to, had thrown them aside as unnecessary, a lewd employment for a king to keep such in his mind. For a moment, other memories return, others he had thrown aside when he became King Harry the Fifth: dark places, hushed voices, Ned Poins the ever-willing shadow. Long gone now.

The King vomits feebly, coughing and cursing this slow expiration. He knows he has not long left now. He would not have been allowed such remembrances if he had.

-

_‘Do not let him in,’ Henry orders, his voice a shadow of its former self. ‘I do not want to see him.’_

_The servant nods and leaves. When he returns later, the visitor at the door still not dispelled but at least not forcing his way in, he can see no life in the King, the former king for now the king is an infant back in England. Left for heaven, and his last breath wasted on a commonplace order._


End file.
